In a reminder of the days when the government took its "nanny state" duties rather more literally than now, the National Archive is to put 60 post-war public information films online, including one where the Department of Health teaches a middle aged man how to blow his nose.

A confidential memo from Peter Grant Peterkin, the serjeant at arms, to the public administration committee recommends that sofas in MPs' offices be 'gradually withdrawn' because they 'sit people too closely together'.

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, will today announce the end of 10 of the BBC World Service's historic foreign language services to mostly eastern European states, to find the £25m worth of savings needed to fund the corporation's new Arabic television channel.

National news p7

Police and civic leaders in Birmingham yesterday issued fresh appeals for calm during another day of rumours and speculation that threatened to spark fresh trouble between the city's Pakistani and African-Caribbean communities.

Simon Hoggart's sketch: It was the first time we had seen the former chancellor, and first loser in the Tory leadership election, appear at the dispatch box for many years, and it was a crisp reminder of what the Tories have thrown away.

National news p14

Animal rights activists who support attacks on science laboratories will face the full force of the new counter-terror laws designed to combat the post 7/7 menace of suicide bombers in Britain, it was disclosed last night.

The normally genteel surroundings of the Senate committee rooms had never seen anything like it, and neither, by the look on his face, had Norm Coleman, the senator from Minnesota, the main target of Mr Galloway's invective.

International news p22

An anarchist anthropology professor described as one of the brightest minds in his field has become a cause célèbre for student union activists at Yale after the university decided not to renew his contract.

The international Middle East envoy, James Wolfensohn, has accused Israel of behaving as if it has not withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, by blocking its borders and failing to fulfil commitments to allow the movement of Palestinians and goods.

Leaders and replies p34

Leader: Where 30 years ago "black" often sufficed to cover both black and Asian communities now multiple identities and communities have emerged. But as the CRE's Trevor Phillips noted last month, one shortcoming of multiculturalism was that it concentrated too much on emphasising the differences between groups and too little on the values they shared.

Corrections and clarifications: We wrongly stated in a Digger column item that the author of UK Sport's forthcoming review of the country's competitiveness for the 2012 Olympic Games is Craig McLatchey (Funding fingers crossed, page 2, Sport, October 14).

Leader: If the Syrian regime is to change it is Syrians who should change it. The pursuit of those responsible for the killing of Mr Hariri cannot be be allowed to falter, but regime change should not ride on the back of judicial process.

Leaders and replies p35

Letters: We write as concerned physicians regarding the medical attention being given to the detainees on hunger strike in Guantánamo Bay, including, according to Amnesty, at least six British residents.

Letters:Speaking on behalf of the National Campaign for the Arts, we wish to add our voices to that of David Edgar (Rules of engagement, October 22) in opposition to the government's racial and religious hatred bill.

Obituaries p37

Obituary: Within a few days of her wedding in January 1942, my mother-in-law Kay Franklin, who has died aged 91, found herself, along with her husband David Mann and her father Albert Clarke, interned in Stanley Camp following the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.

Ian Bone writes: As a leading light in Swansea Claimants Union in the 1970s, Rose Barnes (Other lives, October 7) didn't "represent" people in the conventional sense but simply sat with them in social security appeals tribunals and argued their case with them.